In the second quarter of this year, the average monthly salary in Kazakhstan reached 486,388 tenge, up 8.4% year-on-year in nominal terms, reports infohub.kz.
However, due to higher inflation, real wages fell by 1.8%. The decline has been ongoing since July-September 2025, marking four consecutive quarters of contraction, according to DataHub. The pace of decline has slowed to the minimum for this period: the average decline in the previous three quarters was -2.5%. Analysts note that a decline in real wages is less typical than growth: over the 8.5 years before the current cycle, negative rates were observed only twice – in Q1 2023 and Q3 2020.
The decline in real wages affected most major sectors – nine out of sixteen, which employ 69% of all workers included in the calculations. The largest drops were recorded in education (385,725 tenge, -6.5% y/y adjusted for inflation), entertainment (312,136 tenge, -6.3%), and information and communication (851,076 tenge, -6%).
Regionally, only Almaty (610,371 tenge, +0.8%) and the Abai region (422,043 tenge, +0.3%) saw real income growth, accounting for 18% of the actual workforce. The hardest hit were Almaty region (401,457 tenge, -7%), Ulytau region (588,691 tenge, -6.6%), and Turkistan region (370,964 tenge, -5.1%).
Annual inflation in Kazakhstan stood at 10.3% in June, as previously reported by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Economy Serik Zhumangarin. For 2025, real incomes of Kazakh citizens, adjusted for inflation, fell by 1.1% despite nominal growth of 10.2%. The average per capita income was 238,070 tenge. The share of wages in GDP is about 31% (as of 2024), compared to over 40% in developed countries. In this context, the Ministry of National Economy has set the task of making income distribution fairer, encouraging businesses to allocate more profits to wages rather than just dividends.